My name is Shen Nian. I'm a fake heiress, and I'm also faking being a fool.
Three months ago, Shen Zhao, the Shen family's real heiress, came home.
The first time she looked at me, the cold in her eyes sent a chill down my spine. It wasn't the look you give a stranger—it was the look you give an enemy.
I had no idea what I'd done to her in her past life, before she was reborn. But for someone to come back with that much hatred in their heart, it must have been something terrible.
So I staged a car accident.
A mild concussion, a handful of scrapes and bruises, and—perfectly timed—a convenient case of "brain damage".
Not the stereotypical kind of fool, mind you. I could feed and dress myself, hold a normal conversation. I just reacted a beat slower, spoke less, had a vacant look in my eyes, and would sometimes zone out staring at nothing. When I smiled, there was a harmless, disarming innocence to it that no one could get mad at.
The doctor said it was likely a sequela of the concussion, and that I'd need to be monitored.
The Shen family cried, gave me a sum of money, then silently, unanimously, foisted me off on Shen Zhao.
After all, I was the fake heiress. The real one was home now. And after all—who would want to keep caring for a fool they weren't even related to?
Shen Zhao came to pick me up the day I was "discharged from the hospital".
She leaned against the car door, wearing a dark wool coat. Her features were cold, her jaw set tight.
I dragged my suitcase over to her slowly, deliberately slow, my steps unsteady, like a patient who hadn't fully recovered.
When I reached her, I lifted my head, gave her one look with that vacant, empty gaze, then dropped my eyes and mumbled, "Sister."
Shen Zhao didn't reply.
She stared at me in silence for a long time, so long that I almost thought she'd seen through my act.
Then she reached out, took my suitcase from me, and her other hand came to rest naturally on the back of my head, giving it a soft rub.
"Come on," her voice was flat, "let's go home."
In that moment, I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I'd won the bet.
Shen Zhao hated me, but she hated the Shen Nian who'd been arrogant and domineering, who'd fought her at every turn.
But a broken, harmless Shen Nian who needed to be taken care of? To her, that was maybe a trophy. Maybe a way to make amends. Or maybe… I couldn't tell what it was.
But from that day on, Shen Zhao took care of me.
To the rest of the world, she was the perfect older sister.
She'd peel shrimp for me with her own hands, drape her coat over my shoulders, and when I accidentally bumped my knee on the corner of a table, she'd kneel down to rub it better, her brows furrowed tight, her voice impossibly soft: "Niannian, watch where you're walking."
Everyone said Shen Zhao was kind, that she was so good to a sister she wasn't even blood-related to.
Only I knew what those gentle hands became when the lights went out.